The Secret Sauce of a Successful Venture

There are plenty of stories about failed ventures, of failed products and services that just did work in the marketplace. Equally, there are stories of successful businesses, and behind those stories are the stories of the intrepid founder whom led his/her company from obscurity to notoriety. 

So, it only makes sense to study and try to understand what separates the not-so-successful from the extraordinary.  Is it planning? Is successful exclusively dependent on the product or service?  Or, is success  determined by the quality of its leader?  From my research,  the answer is “all of the above”.

During my last post, I discussed author and Tufts University professor Amar Bhide’s opinion on business plans, calling it an antiquated process that trains entrepreneurs to develop a “one-size fits all” approach.   I would have to agree. As I begin to wrap up the final details of my venture planning, I have learned that while it is good to plan, flexibility, adaptability, and creativity are the most important qualities any venture (and its leader) can have.  One has to have the vision and gumption to react to market and consumer changes, for opportunities come in the most expected forms.

Another reason I have adapted Bhide’s strategy of flexible business planning is the fact that I do not want to actual document to dictate the direction of the business (business, after all, is a living, breathing thing) and become paralyzed by possibilities if they fall outside the scope of the original plan.  (Beth Comstock, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of GE does a good job of explaining this here.  I’ve now begun to think of my venture as a dynamic entity,  open to change, so, when I am forecasting sales, I now have a tendency to plan for a multitude of products and services (I originally set out as a service-oriented business) to address my best assumption of marketplace trends. I want my business to be nimble enough to adapt to the future. Although the income projection section will probably always be the most important section investors will look at, I tend to think that the Mission and Backgrounder section will hold as much weight.